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all kinds of sweet-smelling and flowering plants ; 

 but not such gardens as those belonging to our 

 English cottages, where a few cabbages and carrots 

 just peep up and grovel upon the earth between 

 hedges, in square narrow beds, and where the 

 tallest tree is a gooseberry bush : the vegetables of 

 the negroes are all cultivated in their provision- 

 grounds ; these form their kitchen-gaidens, and 

 these are all for ornament or luxury, and are filled 

 with a profusion of oranges, shaddocks, cocoa-nuts, 

 and peppers of all descriptions : in particular I 

 was shown the abba, or palm-tree, resembling the 

 cocoa-tree, but much more beautiful, as its leaves 

 are larger and more numerous, and, feathering to 

 the ground as they grow old, they form a kind of 

 natural arbour. It bears a large fruit, or rather 

 vegetable, towards the top of the tree, in shape 

 like the cone of the pine, but formed of seeds, 

 some scarlet and bright as coral, others of a 

 brownish-red or purple. The abba requires a 

 length of years to arrive at maturity : a very fine 

 one, which was shown me this morning, was sup- 

 posed to be upwards of an hundred years old ; and 

 one of a very moderate size had been planted at the 

 least twenty years, and had only borne fruit once. 



It appears to me a strong proof of the good 

 treatment which the negroes on Cornwall have 

 been accustomed to receive, that there are many 

 very old people upon it ; I saw to-day a woman 

 near a hundred years of age; and I am told that 



